Latest Posts

Guitars are one of the only instruments in the world to have both an acoustic and electronic version. Others include pianos and keyboards, but even these are considered to be 2 separate instruments entirely. You won’t find an acoustic drum and an electric drum; a drum is a drum at the end of the day! So what can you expect if you’re used to playing an acoustic guitar but you’re interested in making the switch to an electric version?

Well one of the main differences between acoustic and electric guitars is that the latter uses electricity. That doesn’t mean that they can’t be played without a plug or cable; in fact you’ll still find that your electric guitar hits the exact same notes as an acoustic guitar does, but the main difference is that electric guitars can be plugged in to amplifiers, personal computers and even multimedia devices.

This makes them useful on several levels. The first is that by plugging an electric guitar in to an amplifier, you can take your music beyond the space of your strings and play to a much wider audience. Amplifiers are often used on stages where they can play sound at much higher volumes. Another great use of electric guitars is that they can also be plugged in to computers as mentioned above. When used with the right software, a guitar player can even record their own notes and melodies and do all sorts of things with them when connected to a computer.

If you are a little bit unsure about making the switch between either type of guitar, then it’s always a good idea to get in touch with a professional guitar teacher. Their guitar lessons will vary from beginner to expert, so you’ll be able to settle right in at your skill level and get to know the benefits and disadvantages of either instrument.

Guitar lessons are also a great way to boost your skills and learn new techniques, and even the most experienced guitar players will often state that they haven’t finished their guitar education. That’s the beauty of guitars; you might be able to learn all of the notes and chords and be well versed with melodies and rhythms, but there’s always a new technique or method that you can apply across the entire spectrum.

So if you’re hoping to make the switch between acoustic and electric, or vice versa, then the first thing that you should consider is getting trained in the other instruments use by an experienced professional. Guitar lessons are the way to go even if you’re already well-versed with guitar playing as they’ll help you to broaden your knowledge base and understand the ins and outs of the other instrument much more effectively. You’ll be sure to learn plenty and when you’re ready to walk away, you can do so with the ability to switch between guitars at will. Train with a professional at http://www.andy-mayne.squarespace.com/

A website’s back end or CMS (Content Management System) is its backbone. Without the administrative options provided by the CMS, company personnel could only perform a fraction of the tasks the platform has to offer.

Functions such as appointment forms, event signups, and other major interactive items are usually handled through plugins activated within the CMS. These plugins also enable marketing professionals to perform a variety of tasks.

WordPress is one of many well-integrated CMS platforms for a vast array of plugins, and is largely considered the most popular available CMS. Consider optimizing your hosting plan if you choose WordPress to maximize the benefits of the following five WordPress CMS plugins for marketing.

MailChimp

Activate this plugin immediately if your company writes a newsletter, runs an email blast campaign, or in any way communicates with customers on the basis of subscription. This do-it-all plugin masterfully and intuitively assists with every part of the blast campaign process.

Customers or readers can choose which communications to subscribe to, how to receive the information, and more. From behind the scenes, your firm can decide how to schedule communications, whether or not reply should be available, and many other options.

This inclusive plugin is a marketer’s dream for lead generation and current customer engagement. The idea is to use relevant data to determine the best possible times and avenues for contacting potential and current customers, and then drafting content that will be valuable for those individuals.

Target your market carefully to avoid coming across as too stuffy or casual, and use language that will be appropriate for your ideal demographic. MailChimp also enables seasonal communications – such as birthday emails, holiday deals, and more – that will arrive in a timely fashion and be useful to customers.

It will incentivize clients, who can interact with you without feeling hassled or irritated.

Broken Link Checker

One of the most effective ways to drive customers away from your website is if they encounter a bunch of broken links. When they’re trying to find specific content and can’t, that’s an inconvenience… which doesn’t improve their perception of you.

Further, customers will not believe your website is properly managed and up to date, which will turn them away. This plugin prevents all that by scouring your site for inadequacies so you don’t have to.

Use this plugin to ensure your website functions at its best. Customers can peruse every part of your site without being redirected or locked out of information that otherwise would have converted the lead into a sale.

Nothing is more embarrassing than directing a potential or current customer to a part of your website that does not exist, as far as they’re able to see.

Google Analytics

Imagine everything you want to know about your customer base is at your fingertips. In fact, Google Analytics is a well-organized platform that includes every detail that can be harvested for use by marketers.

With this plugin, you can enjoy the benefits of the Google Analytics interface on the WordPress dashboard for more streamlined data mining and use. Utilize mined data such as customer traffic patterns, mobile usage, and site visits by age, location, and more to inform market retargeting, keywords, and other optimization efforts.

Identify the sources of your website traffic so you can strategically delegate more effort into marketing channels that are working particularly well. You can find every bit of information in one place with this plugin. Google Analytics is widely recommended as a must-have for almost any company, and is, according to iPage blogger Jessica Ann, “easily the most popular analytics tool in use today.”

SEO-Friendly Images

Every company in your industry is vying for the top spot in Google’s search results. Being among the top competitors takes a lot of forethought and analysis to make sure your content is optimized, keywords are purposeful, and so forth.

One great way to create content that Google recognizes and endorses is through image optimization. Creating keyword-dense alt tags for images can give your company a boost in its climb to the top of Mt. Google.

This plugin automatically populates your title tags and image tags as soon as you upload your media. You no longer have to lose time on other projects by tediously entering every specific keyword tag; the task will not be left undone or neglected.

This is especially useful for companies with product photos or those who upload continuously to a gallery or portfolio.

Popup Domination

Have you notice that every website has an automatic popup these days, which asks you to sign up for something or offers some other type of feedback? These companies are motivated by a desire to achieve a greater rapport and level of interaction with their customers or readers.

Some popups are flashy and overdone, while others match well with the style of the website and clearly communicate their request for interaction.

You want to be the company with the successful entry popup, and you can employ subtlety with assistance from the Popup Domination plugin. It helps to create website popups and deploy them at any point in your customer’s site navigation experience, and offers templates that look and feel more professional than many others.

When it comes to seamless viewing, nothing quite does it like the brand new WELTV Premium. With direct plug-in available so that you can connect the device directly to your broadband via Ethernet, as well as wifi functionality if you’d prefer a cable-less function, users can enjoy the latest and greatest in Asian television, all as easily accessible as you’d expect from one of the latest pieces of hardware from TCL. All that you’ll need is a minimum of 2MB broadband to get you going and you can enjoy the features immediately after purchase; there’s no monthly fee at all and all that customers will pay for is the WELTV device itself!

The set top box offers plenty of features and functions, from its dual corex A9 processor, full 3D GPU compatibility and a speedy 1GB of DDR3 RAM, all the way to a live program recorder, an HDMI output slot, built-in wifi technology, over 140 live television channels and an Android operating system which will allow users to download and install apps from the Android market; the WELTV provides much more than you could possibly imagine.

As the box provides HDMI input and output, users can experience seamless coverage of both television and gaming potential without interruption. The internal storage is a whopping 4GB, so you can be sure that whatever show you’re planning on watching, your WELTV has more than enough storage to save it for when you’re ready to view. A further feature to this would be that your shows can be recorded ahead of time and then played back to suit your schedule!

Now coming with 3 individual USB ports, just in case the channels, games and features aren’t enough; you can also insert your own USB devices to have access to their media files via your WELTV box. This is also a great way to make the most of your Blu-Ray and 3D files by making use of the WELTV’s compatibility; making this set top box ideal for 3D and Smart TVs around the world. The live stream recording features also provide users with a way to watch their favorite shows by making use of your high-speed broadband connection.

So what can you expect to receive with your WELTV order? Well for a start, there’s no monthly fee involved and customers can simply purchase the set top box with a one off payment to begin their live-television enjoyment. The contents of your order will consist of a WELTV set top box, a useful HDMI cable, an AV component cable, a power adaptor, a remote control and an instruction manual that will help you to get started.

Once set up with your broadband connection, your WELTV will take care of the hard work so that you can sit back and relax while you watch your favorite shows, play games or simply enjoy your media. With access to the most popular Asian television channels, including the FOX series, and major news channels, nothing will stand in your way when it comes to your live-television enjoyment!

Let’s face it – here at Plug-in, we make great creativity games, even if we do say so ourselves. Having said that, we may have set ourselves our biggest arty challenge yet when CBeebies wanted an art tool that could be re-skinned across any of the wonderfully various shows included in the CBeebies family. The challenge: create a vanilla art tool designed for children that included all the classically crafty elements you find at play schools up and down the country as well as exciting new interactive elements for desktop play. Then we needed to find a way to make sure the feature set could be themed from Tree Fu Tom to Andy’s Wild Adventures!

We do love getting our hands dirty at Plug-in Towers and we all spent a while thinking back to our toddler crafting days and coming up with ways to bring that sense of engaging excitement to desktop. How can we make a child feel like they can create anything and everything? Should we have all the tools placed around the scene or in a menu system? Should the paints, pencils and stickers be put on a carousel? What should we include? What stickers can we use and how should they respond to the user?

After a few prototypes, we tested the two we felt gave that overwhelming sense of creativity with children in local play groups. The reaction was unanimous and you can see what we all (including our amazing kid testers!) decided on, with the Tree Fu Tom version: Stink’s Slimetastic SketchPad; Andy’s Wild Adventures: Andy’s Wild Art and the original application for CBeebies: Make a Picture.

Play with the themed and message stickers, paints, pencils, markers and paint fill effects. Don’t forget our amazing glitter tool AND you can even take a picture of yourself or upload one from your computer to add to your image! Print your finished picture out, save it to your desktop or send it to granny as a thank you card!

We are very excited to announce that Plug-in Media won the Creative Industry Award at the 2013 Brighton and Hove Business Awards! The event celebrated the best local talent in the city and we are delighted to have been recognised in this competitive category. On Thursday 6th June the team headeded to Brighton’s Palace Pier for the ceremony and in true seaside fashion thoroughly enjoyed fish and chips, candy floss and the dodg ‘ems before the awards were announced. We are very proud and truly ecstatic to win the award – presented by Brighton’s best Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley tributes – and a wonderfully warm and sunny evening was had by everyone there. Thank you BAHBAS! For more information about the awards and photos from the night go to www.bahba.co.uk.

Plug-in Media is a BAFTA-winning digital media production company that uses cutting edge technology to deliver engaging, interactive entertainment experiences. We blend animation, gaming and narrative with great design and top class coding to produce work that is visually stunning, technically ground-breaking and with great storytelling and humour at its core.